3 Most Popular Hearing Aid Accessories

Wireless hearing aids are sophisticated devices that can truly improve your quality of life. However, there are situations where you might need to rely on external accessories to communicate effectively. In this article we’re going to take a look at the most popular hearing aid accessories and why they’re useful.

Remote microphones: Have you ever struggled to hear your spouse when you’re having dinner at a busy restaurant? A remote microphone can be extremely helpful in this situation. I always ask my girlfriend to wear my Roger Pen around her neck, or clip it to her top, when we’re having dinner in a loud restaurant. It makes the dining experience so much more enjoyable.

Even if I could understand what she’s saying without a remote microphone, I’d have to concentrate extremely hard, and I’d be drained at the end of the dinner. That’s why I always bring my remote mic with me when we’re going out, and use it even if the background noise isn’t too harsh.

Remote microphones are also very helpful in the car. If you’re driving, ask your passenger to speak into the mic and you’ll hear with less effort. Plus, you’ll be able to keep your eyes on the road, which is safer, too. Just like having dinner in a loud restaurant, less effort equals a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

For these two use cases alone I think it’s worth buying a remote mic. But there are plenty of other ones. Remote mics are useful during group classes, such yoga and dance classes. They’re very useful in work meetings, too. Every manufacturer will have their own make, so ask your audiologist for recommendations.

Bluetooth Streamers: I’ve met many hearing aid users who find it very difficult to hear a conversation over the phone. Struggling to hear your colleagues or friends and family is frustrating, and you may start to avoid taking phone calls altogether.

For many types of hearing loss, the solution here is a bluetooth streamer. This is a device that you wear around your neck and it will wirelessly stream audio directly into your hearing aids. Some streamers will even allow you to mute the mics on your hearing aids. This means you can switch off background noise altogether, and only hear the sound that’s streamed directly into your hearing aids.

With a Bluetooth streamer, you can stream sound from any Bluetooth source, for example you can stream the audio from videos on your laptop or music from your smartphone.

TV Streamer: Even with your hearing aids in, you might find it difficult to understand every word when you’re watching TV. This is completely normal. Hearing aids will amplify the TV for you, but your speech understanding won’t be as good as for people with perfect hearing.

When sound originated by the TV speakers travels through air, it bounces off all sorts of surfaces and arrives to your hearing aids distorted, and your brain has to work harder to make sense of it. When people have perfect hearing, the brain has an easier job deciphering distorted sound, but with hearing aids, your brain has to work twice as hard.

Instead, when you stream directly into your hearing aids, the sound arrives intact, with perfect quality. Like with a Bluetooth streamer, a TV streamer sends the sound directly into your hearing aids. The crucial difference here is that a TV streamer works even if your TV isn’t Bluetooth.

Last but not least, with a TV streamer you have the option to leave the TV loudspeakers on, so if you’re watching TV with friends or family, your company can set the TV at their desired volume, too.

We hope you enjoyed reading about these popular hearing aid accessories. Do you know of any other accessories? Please be sure to share your experiences below!

Author bio: Gianluca Trombetta is a hearing aid user and an expert in living well with hearing loss. He teaches hearing aid users how to maximize their communication abilities even in the most challenging situations at getsuperhumanhearing.com